GMG - Las Vegas Weekly

November 7, 2013

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Grilled Octopus from Morocco
Organic lemons and parsley
from California
Estiatorio Milos house
extra virgin olive oil
from Greece
Capers from Greece
Grilled Tsipoura from Greece
Langoustines from Scotland
Hand-shoveled salt from
Kythira Island in Greece
Virginia, Delaware and the Gulf Coast, and supplying
30 grocery stores and dozens of restaurants across the
country with up to 15 varieties of ﬁsh and shellﬁsh,
including 15,000 pounds of crab per week. Locally,
they supply eateries like Honey Salt and Carnevino, as
well as their own Crab Corner.
Like Milos, Nevada Seafood Wholesalers is a roundthe-clock operation—the Smolens estimate an 18-hour
sea-to-plate turnaround—with high costs and high risks.
Flights alone cost $25,000 monthly, and proﬁts are constantly at the whim of weather and public perception.
"It is masochistic," John says. "Lucky for us, there's not
much we love more than fresh Maryland crab."
For the restaurants that buy exotic seafood and
other ingredients, sourcing has become essential to
stand out among the competition.
"You have to do it. We spend a tremendous amount
of time focused on sourcing our different items," says
Wynn Corporate Executive Chef David Snyder. He
estimates that a quarter of Wynn's 4,000-line-item
inventory is uniquely or regionally sourced, with
products ranging from Ohmi beef from Japan's Shiga
14-15_Feature_Dining_20131107.indd 15
Prefecture to Scottish salmon from the Shetland
Isles. "Chefs started to realize, 'I can buy the same
product as [my competitor], but how am I going
to lure more people into my venue?' Tying back to
where a product comes from lets you tell a story
at the end of the day to your customers. As diners
become more knowledgeable, they want to know
how their food happened."
Telling that story has become particularly tricky
for Vegas chefs, as coastal suppliers have been tapped
by restaurants closer to home and sourcing has
grown ﬁercely competitive. Some chefs seek out premium vendors, like Wagyu cattle ranchers in small
Japanese villages, and build longstanding relationships to guarantee exclusive access to a product.
"Beef wars" have begun, in which chefs make highvolume orders of steak and other products to purposely create shortages for their competitors, and the
same tactic is carrying over to products like seafood,
exacerbating the issue of overﬁshing.
For restaurants like Milos, sustainability is as
essential to survival as the quality of the food.
Though Milos orders conservatively and according
to seasonal availability, using strictly line-caught ﬁsh
from small-operation ﬁshermen, Georgiadis admits
that ﬁnding certain species is already becoming difﬁcult. And as the practice of sourcing becomes more
common, such issues are likely to increase. Snyder
says shipment, quantity and other regulations will
have to become part of the process to ensure a wide
variety of ingredients on dinner plates for today's
eaters and the next generation.
"We're far from a saturation point, but I think as
people become more educated [sourcing] will kind
of become second nature and fade into the background," Snyder says. "From the chef to the service
staff to the guest, there's a respect for the product
that trickles down."
Back at Milos, the philosophy behind sourcing is less
about keeping up with trends than it is about simple
quality. "Why go so far? Because it's better," Georgiadis
says. "Because this is how we know how to do it. Good
ingredients, good food, it doesn't need any help."
–Andrea Domanick
11/6/13 1:23 PM